Science Matters

The lobbying is an issue, but it's not an insurmountable issue. And one of the reasons that not one of the reasons, but I said I was going to start for 12 years, ended up being majority leader, left, and fulfill my commitment. And part of that freed me up from any kind of dependence on raising money, spending time raising money, having lobbyists come in and say, oh, yeah, I'll help you out. And so lobbying is an issue here. But based on my experience of those 12 years of running the United States Senate, it is not the primary driver. And the people, I can speak for the Senate, the people in the Senate will listen. It takes getting to them, as I said, social media actually helps in terms of getting to them. It has to be fact-based, increasingly science-based. And one thing I think the whole COVID pandemic is gonna do, among our 350 million people out there is an appreciation of what science is all about. And, you know, cut through all the fake news, cut through all the dismissal of science. And I think even the president of the United States, who has not been a big fan of science in the past, maybe is going to wake up a little bit more the fact that science matters.